There is so much wrong here I don't know where to start. Pretty much all motivations and actions taken by the school in question are utterly and horrifying WRONG and just plain stupid that my brain hurts.

And they solve this by using a program that will log onto their students' webcams to monitor them when they're doing godknowswhat shit in their bedrooms. I don't know about you, but no matter what age group you're in, what goes on in the bedroom, stays in the bedroom.

My only question is what the hell did the school actually write in the consent form that made the guardians overlook the part where it said, "signing this consent form gives the so-and-so public school district permission to monitor your child(ren) in their bedroom at all times" or whatever?

My feelings on this are pretty much summed up in what the author had to say,

Knowing some creepazoid is slavering at the other end of the wire just gives me so many evil ideas to cause havoc.

-LS

Add to that in recent years the pervs who have been school administrators and teachers! I have serious problems with this.

Besides the fact that the officials of this school INSANELY believe that it's their job (instead of a parent's job) to monitor a student for "improper behavior in his home," I'd like to know where the hell that school district gets the money to issue personal, webcam-equipped laptop computers to each of the 1,800 students in the district's two high schools.

Oh wait. Silly me. They get the money from the taxpayers, of course. Yet another classic example of government handing out a "gift" (laptop computers) with one hand, while fisting you with the other.



Apparently, there wasn't any consent form. Another news artlcle stated: "When the computers were distributed to students, the district did not disclose that it could activate the cameras at any time, the suit alleges."

-- Nephele

Nephele - This article says it was a state and federally-funded program. Given what I know about state and federal grants, plus the lowered cost of laptops provided for schools (which generally have far more limited functionality and are locked down from unauthorized upgrades/software installations), it's not that far-fetched that LMSD had the money for the program. This was most likely done with grants that were already slated for such a purpose.

I can't say I am surprised, public grade schools tend to have a big problem with ruling over their students as a police state would. Just look at how many schools refuse to have doors on their bathroom stalls. Wasn't there a girl on this forum a while back who said their school placed an adult in each bathroom to "spy" on the students to make sure they're "not doing anything bad"? That's just creepy, I wouldn't have been able to use the bathroom in school if mine had been like that, it would have made me way too uncomfortable.

There was a story a year or two ago about a public school wanting to chip all their students with rfid's. They promoted the idea by saying it would eliminate the need for having teachers take time out to do an attendance roll call, since every student would be electronically "scanned" every time they walk in or out of a classroom's door. And they wonder why so many kids don't want to go to school.

This takes the cake though, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the faculty meeting that dreamed this scheme up. I really doubt the intention was to distribute laptops so that they could use their built in cams to spy on kids, it was probably an after thought after laptops were already planed for. Some sort of "hey, did you notice all these laptops have cameras? Maybe we could tap into these to see what they're doing!"

Thanks for the additional information, Luna. However, considering that a major portion of state and federal grant funding comes directly from tax revenues, I don't think I'm off in my statement of this being a case of government handing you a "gift" with one hand while fisting you with the other.

-- Nephele

If they try to chip me i'd tell them where they could stick it seriously that's just wrong, i hate the idea of a chip like that, i agree they wonder why indeed. i think the state already has to much power over what parents can and can't do, becuase of them nannying all the time parents are to afraid to displine (within reason) there kids beucase there afraid of repocussions so now we get the'se aragant brats that can't be controlled, but i digress i'm getting off topic.

if they ever issued me somthing like this i would format it and re-install with what i want on it, no question it's either that or i wouldn't use it i'd also make sure my fellow students knew how to do it as well, seriusly what there doing is going way past looking for student's saftey and "inapropriate behavior" so what? it's there own bedrooms they should be allowed to have some god damn privacy, whatever happend to the scancaty of the bedroom or even the home? were starting to move towards a police state and i'm actually worried about this, the more we let this go on the more that the goverment and any goverment establishment think they can push it.

Or you could, you know, put electrical tape over the camera eye.

A friend of mine homeschools her kids (grade school level) and the charter school provided laptops. They are locked down, so you can't mess with the software (or install games or whatever). Then again, I doubt they have cameras in them either.

So, initiate a protocol that has been suggested numerous times to keep track of convicted criminals and instead use it on a bunch of minors who will (hopefully) only be at a certain institution for four fucking years. Swell.

Unless we're talking about some external chip, way to treat students like lost pets.

And do your own attendance you lazy-assed teachers. I thought that teachers would know that roll call is how teachers form bonds with their students instead of looking at them like some formless clumps of gray clay. All together, this is really dehumanizing.

Get rid of the computers. All the computers. Useless playthings that they are.

I'm about as technical as you can get; electronic design (analog as well as digital), FPGA, CPLD, TTL or whatever (cpu design), device drivers, firmware, bootloaders, ASM,C, LISP, Pascal, created scripting languages, and I can etch and solder a circuit board and wire the thing up. x86 ARM MIPS Z80 8051 6502 PIC and highly integrated SoC. Added Linux kernel hacking a few years ago, no big deal.

I got interested in computers at an early age (Tandy TRS-80 was too expensive!) but all that I learned was based on a solid educational background that enabled me to learn. Computer learning is brain slush, no excuses, its crud. I've also brought up a teenage girl and know education has not been totally gutted, but its close, too many 'external' things to learning instead of the self.

I'm supposed to be all relaxed after my bath.

-LS

There's a maxim a friend of mine swears by, in regards to computer security which goes: "If there is a software solution, then there is a workaround to that solution." There is no way to prevent a determined user with physical access from doing what they want with the machine.

We have cameras on our work laptops as well - they could be purely for web-conferencing, or maybe for some other purpose...?

They were going to implement it by going to uniforms, and then having the chip placed in the clothing. Alternatively they were considering putting the chips in those mesh book bags and requiring students to use them. The idea was that it would be invisible, you wouldn't know it was there unless you were looking for it, so it wouldn't feel as intrusive as an ankle bracelet. To me that makes the scheme all the worse, surveillance is supposed to be intrusive. When it isn't, you run the danger of people internalizing it as normal, and thus accepting it without [much] limitation. I have my own gripes with uniforms as well but I'll leave that to a better suited discussion.